And Then There Were None
by Addicted Archangel
Summary: A bit AU. The BAU wakes up in a locked down house and find themselves caught in a hellish nightmare. They are forced to participate in a macabre game of elimination - a game only one of them will leave alive. *** WARNING! Character deaths in later chapter
1. Eight Little Agents

**A/N: Thank you to the Gublerific editor frog for beta reading this chapter! No carachter death in ch 1**

Morgan slowly opened his eyes

Morgan slowly opened his eyes. The room around him was dim and there was a strange smell in the air. It smelled of old wood and dampness. Frowning, he closed his eyes again. His head was pounding heavily, making him wince. It felt like the hangover from hell, but the dark skinned agent couldn't remember drinking the night before. Turning his head to the side, he realized he had a terribly stiff neck.

_I must have slept funny..._ he thought.

Opening his eyes once again, Morgan looked straight into the motionless face of Aaron Hotchner.

The superior's eyes were closed as he lay on his stomach beside Morgan, his left arm twisted in an almost impossible position.

"Hotch!"

Rolling over onto his belly, the younger agent threw his arm over to Hotch to shake him awake. Trying to feel his superior's pulse; relieved, he found it. A dull moan escaped the older agent as he began to squint his eyes in confusion.

Morgan now noticed that he and Hotch were not the only ones just waking up. As he raised his head, he saw a too familiar set of blonde curls lying in a heap a few feet away.

"Garcia!" Crawling over to the blonde woman, Morgan banged his knee into something hard that made a noise, resembling a groan. He didn't care. He had to get to Garcia. Running his hands over her head, the man made sure she wasn't hurt before he gently shook her back to consciousness.

"Garcia? Baby, it's time to wake up. Are you all right?"

As the piercing blue eyes of the blonde technical advisor fluttered open, the tie around Morgan's chest loosened. The absence of glasses made the woman look completely different as she peered out from under her messy hair.

"Morgan...? Wha...whe...where am I?" The confusion on Garcia's voice was painfully obvious.

"I don't know."

Sitting up, Morgan realized he was sitting on a hard wood floor. And he certainly wasn't alone in the room. In the far end of the room, Reid was just coming back to life, crawling to his knees. Looking over his shoulder, the agent saw Rossi already sitting on the floor holding his head. They seemed to have the same headache that was tormenting Morgan.

A soft moan came from behind a green couch. Moments later a pair of pale hands gripped the armrest, and JJ pulled herself up onto her feet.

"What is going on?" she whimpered; also holding her head. Stumbling over the coffee table as she made her way towards her colleagues on the floor, she took a hard fall on the wood below her; nearly falling straight on top of Emily. JJ cringed as she felt her knee take a violent blow.

"What the hell is this?" Hotch had risen to his feet, holding a dresser by the wall. Looking around, he found himself in a room completely unknown to him, with his entire team at his feet; everyone just waking up as from a deep sleep.

Taking a few shaky steps over the floor, Hotch grabbed the curtains covering a window and yanked it aside. Inch-thick iron bars embellished the outside of the glass. Hotch felt an internal turmoil rush through his system.

_What the hell is going on here?!_

Trying to open the window, the superior agent pulled and yanked at the latch, but to no avail. It wouldn't budge.

"Hotch, what is this place?" Morgan quickly glanced around the room as he supported the still wobbly Garcia on his right arm.

"Where are we?" Reid squeaked from the other side of the room, still trying to get up.

Everyone's minds were blurred and confused; trying to focus as much as to see where they were. But none of them knew the answers, for no one knew. The room was strange to them all.

It was a normal living room. Spacious and old fashionably luxurious, but otherwise normal. There were two antique-looking couches placed in and 'L' in front of a large fireplace. Two silver candlesticks had been placed in top of it, but none of the white wax candles were lit.

A large oak coffee table stood in front of the couches, a colorful bouquet of fresh wildflowers decorating it. The image of fresh flowers did not compute with the rest of the house, as it was impregnated with the smell of abandonment. It smelled damp and moldy, like an old cottage in the mountains somewhere.

Two of the walls were covered in bookshelves floor to ceiling with an enormous amount of books; all of them looking more or less ancient. Figurines and empty picture frames adorned the few spaces on the shelves that were not packed with books.

A broad doorway to the right in the room lead into something that looked like a dim hallway. Lights were turned on here and there, but none of them giving a lot of illumination to the dusky house.

The, what appeared to be, windows along the long side of the room that was not covered in bookfilled shelves didn't let any great amount of light into the shadowy living room. Thick curtains covered the glass ceiling to floor.

A large and extremely expensive looking chandelier hung from the ceiling and a huge oriental rug lay in the middle of the floor; most of the agents had woken up on it.

There was general confusion in the air as the agents began rising and orienting themselves. Reid steadied himself on a shelf as he made his way towards Hotch and the others.

"H-how did we get here?" he asked wearily, holding his head because of the intense headache. "It feels like I've been shot up with something...strong." Reid began to panic at the thought of having been drugged yet again. He was not sure he could go through the same hell as he once had.

_Oh, God – not again!_

Hotch shook his head. "I don't know how we got here. I don't remember."

"Me neither." Emily helped JJ to her feet and they walked over to the rest of the team. Her head spun like a tilt-a-whirl and she felt a sudden need to vomit.

"None of us do." Rossi came up behind Hotch, a very serious look on his face. "Everyone just woke up here a moment ago."

"What the hell is this? What the hell is going on?" Morgan was fuming the most he could with the thundering headache ravaging his skull. He'd woken up in his pajamas in a house he'd never seen before, surrounded by his teammates, who were as confused as he was. "Who put us here?"

Come to think of it, they were all in their pajamas. Looking at his team, Morgan came to the quick conclusion that they had been abducted – every one of them – in their sleep; from their own beds.

Morgan, Hotch and Reid were all in their boxers accompanied by t-shirts. Reid still had his bed-head on with his brown curls in a complete chaos. JJ and Garcia were in their pajamas and Emily wore a purple nightgown reaching her knees. Rossi's green pajama was a dreadful sight - but on the other hand, no one was supposed to see him in it either.

"Okay, this looks _way_ too much like the Bates mansion..." Garcia crept closer to Morgan, clinging to his arm.

Starting to walk around in the dim room, the team tried to figure out where they were, why they were there and who had brought them there.

Looking out the window, Rossi sighed. "Woods." It was a short but accurate description of what was on the other side of the glass. There seemed to be a vast amount of trees as far as the eye could see, about 40 feet away from the house they were in. The woods were pitch black; the only light coming from the moon, set high in the opaque sky.

Turning to the others, Rossi frowned. "Who the hell brought us here?"

"Save that for later; we've gotta get out of here." Morgan began walking towards what seemed to be a hallway at the other end of the room, Garcia on his arm; refusing to let go of her knight in ebony armor. The rest of the team followed him close behind, ready for anything.

Reaching the hallway, the team came to a short stop. Looking at the front door at the end of the corridor, everyone felt their heart sink to a new low.

The large metal door greeting them looked like something taken straight out of a bank vault. What seemed to be an electronic lock embellished the outer end of the left doorframe. Whatever this was, it wasn't the way out.

"Okay, this is beginning to freak me out..." Emily ran her fingers through her hair, a very worried look on her face.

"You're not the only one." Hotch approached the door, examining the lock. "It's a timer. It's set for eight hours."

"Why would someone bring us here and hold us for eight hours?" JJ shook her head in disbelief. This whole situation was strange and intimidating to her - not to mention the house was giving her the creeps.

"There's gotta be another way out." Morgan turned around, searching for another exit.

Rossi shook his head. "Whoever brought us here made very sure we're not supposed to leave. I'd doubt there is another accessible exit."

Knowing Rossi was right, Morgan sighed. "We gotta look, at least."

Whatever this house was, it was huge; almost like a mansion. The kitchen had an adjoining dining room that Reid found bigger than his apartment. The youngest member of the team was very thankful that the lights had been left on, at least dimly.

Reaching the kitchen door, the team found an identical door, with a matching lock; also set to eight hours and ticking. 7.46 left.

"This is crazy! Where are we?!" Garcia was close to climbing the walls, but settled for climbing Morgan instead, refusing to let go of his arm as she almost crept into his pocket.

"Easy, baby. It's gonna be fine." Morgan stroke her hair as he held her close in protecting, muscular arms. Turning his head to Hotch, his look was more angry than scared. "Hotch, this isn't right."

"No, it isn't." The superior agent looked around. "None of this is right."

"Who brought us here? And why?" Reid hugged his chest, looking insanely uncomfortable, standing one foot on top of the other.

The house was quiet. Too quiet.

Suddenly, there was a sound emerging from an adjacent room. Morgan drew Garcia behind him, as they all spun towards whatever it was in the next room that had been the source of the noise.

There was only silence as the team collectively held their breath. Surprisingly enough, Reid was the first to speak.

"H-hello? Is someone there?"

Emily let her breath out with a sigh. "Good one, Reid; I'm sure they'll answer."

But to everyone's surprise and shock, there was an answer. "Yes..." A low, croaky voice emanated from the next room.

Everyone jumped at the word spoken into the silent house.

"Reid..?" the voice spoke somewhat less hoarse.

The young agent jerked as he clearly heard the voice he hadn't heard in a very long time. First walking slowly, then picking up pace to reach a rush, he ran into the next room. "Gideon?!"

-o-o-o-

Rushing into the room, Reid found his former colleague on the floor wearing a blue striped pajama; trying to get to his feet. The younger man grabbed Gideon's arm and helped him stand.

"Gideon, what are you doing here?" Reid was nearly in complete upheaval at seeing his old friend and mentor after such a long time, and in such a strange situation.

"I don't...don't know..." Gideon held his head as the young agent supported him with his thin frame. "I just...woke up here. Where are we?"

"We don't know yet." Hotch stood in the doorway with the rest of the BAU, looking at the unexpectedly reunited men. It was a shock to all of them to see Gideon again; especially right now as they had obviously all been abducted and put in a strange house for reasons unknown to all of them.

"Hello Gideon." Not one trace of emotion was shown on Hotch's face as he greeted his former co-worker. Momentarily, he forgot where he was, and felt a stabbing need to slam his fist into the face of the older man in front of him; but repressed the urge.

"Hotch." The older man, still supporting himself on his young friend, looked at his former superior, knowing that this was not the way he wanted to reunite with his team. Turning his head to his protégé, an unnerving look came over him. "What's going on?"

"We don't know, we just..."

Reid never got to finish his sentence before it was interrupted by a loud voice booming through the house.

"_The famous BAU!"_

Garcia jerked, burying her fingernails in the silken skin of Morgan's muscular arm; the man not even flinching at the sharp pain.

"_SSA Aaron Hotchner. SSA David Rossi. SSA Jason Gideon. SA Emily Prentiss. __SA Derek Morgan. Dr. Spencer Reid. SA Jennifer Jareau. Audio/Visual Technician Penelope Garcia."_

Everyone shuddered at the sound of their names. Of course they realized that they had been brought there by someone who knew who they were, but still...

"_You have been brought here for one reason. A simple game of elimination."_

Hotch's eyes darted from wall to wall, trying to find the source of the voice booming through the house, but finding nothing.

"Elimination?" Morgan said straight into the air. "Who..?"

"_One of you __has been paid a large amount of money for completing a simple task; eliminating the BAU."_

Emily frowned. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"_As you have seen, the lock on the door is set for eight hours. As the door opens, only one of you will leave this house__ alive. The rest of you will not."_

Garcia felt tears of pure fear run down her cheeks. This reminded her too much of a horror movie she had seen a few years ago. In the movie, everyone turned on each other, and everyone ended up being killed.

"_Who it will be is up to you. But keep in mind that one of you will do everything to make sure that he or she is the one leaving in the morning."_

JJ was starting to shiver in affect of the frightening message. Was this for real?

"_To make matters a bit more interesting__, there are weapons hidden around the house; including standard issued FBI firearms."_

Reid's mouth was wide open as he listened to the voice roaring though the room. Staring straight out into the open air, his mind began processing the information.

"_In order to survive, you will have to make sacrifices."_

Gideon, now standing on his own, listened to every word the voice around them was saying; trying desperately to place it. As the message had been relayed, he had come to the conclusion that this was no ordinary UnSub. This was someone they had met before. Someone they had made very angry.

"_I now wish you good luck during the night, and I will see one of you in the morning."_

The house once again went silent as the eight federal agents stood as if petrified in the hallway. Hotch was the first to regain the ability to speak.

"What the hell was that?"


	2. And Then There Were Seven

**A/N: Nothing here is mine except for the disturbed mind that keeps haunting me with bunnies.. Beta read by the Gublerific editor frog - thanks doll!**

**! WARNING ! Character death! Do not read if you don't like that stuff!! You have been warned, do NOT flame me. You have been warned!!**

The unsettling voice had stopped booming through the house, and the BAU stood in complete silence. No one had said a word in response to Hotch's question – which had no answer.

Everyone looked at one another, trying to determine if there was even the least bit of truth in the message that had just been delivered to them via some form of speaker system, not visible to the team.

Taking a few steps towards a kitchen counter, Hotch leaned on it trying to get his bearings straight. "There is no way what that man just said is real. None of us came here willingly."

"I know I didn't." Emily rubbed her temples, trying to get the horrible headache to subside.

"_None_ of us did." Hotch emphasized the trust he had for his team. But right now, not many of them could do the same – and all eyes landed involuntarily on Gideon.

Gideon sighed, knowing that no matter what was going on in this house, he was going to have the biggest hell of them all.

"We need to make a profile before we search the house." Rossi set a course back to the living room, slowly followed by the rest of the team.

Reid walked next to his mentor, not knowing what to say to him. His mouth opened several times on the short way back to the room they woke up in, but not a single word could pass over his lips. There just wasn't enough time to ask Gideon all the questions the young agent had inside him. Reaching the living room, they stood beside each other in silence.

"All right." Hotch waited until his team had gathered in the middle of the room before beginning to speak. "We know that there is no truth in the statement made a moment ago. None of us has been paid money to kill the others. That's a fact here."

"This 'elimination game' is a disguised as a display of greed; playing on the illusion that anyone can be bought, even close bonded team members." Rossi crossed his arms over his chest.

"The UnSub wants us to lose our trust and thereby turn on each other. Fat chance of that happening." Emily couldn't help but snicker slightly at the preposterous idea of the BAU failing to trust one another to the point where they killed each other to stay alive themselves.

"The house is secluded and as far as we know, inescapable." Reid frowned, gesturing in front of his chest. "Whoever put this together has taken every precaution possible to prevent us from leaving this house. I'd highly doubt there is a phone line, and from the looks of it, even if we had our cell phones we'd be well out of any service area."

"He obviously has some major issue with us; all of us, since he locked us up here. Even you." As Morgan uttered the last words, he turned towards his former colleague, giving him an icy stare.

Gideon decided to push all old emotions out of the way, and focus on the situation; hoping that the BAU would do the same. "Which brings us to the big question; who did this? The voice in the speakers was familiar, but not one I can place without a doubt."

"Me neither." Morgan turned away from Gideon and back to Hotch. "Okay, since no one in this room is going to kill anyone during the night, we have to assume that there is someone else in the house who has this mission."

Garcia burst into silent tears as she stood hugging herself beside her friends and colleagues. Waking up to a living nightmare was not what she had expected when she went to bed after "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" the night before.

"Let's assess the situation." Hotch ran his fingers through his dark curls. "We're unarmed."

"We're recovering from some form of sedation, or other drug-induced unconsciousness." Reid tried to stick his hands in his pockets, but as they slipped along his hips, he remembered that some garments were missing, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"We're most likely the targets of some deranged lunatic's twisted view of revenge." Morgan looked around, trying to see something; anything, out of the ordinary in the well-furnished room.

"We're somewhere in the middle of nowhere without means of escaping or contacting the outer world, and we have to assume that no one knows where we are." Emily felt a sudden rush of nausea, and she swallowed hard to keep down whatever little stomach contents she had.

"We're not alone in the house." Gideon looked at the barred windows.

"We're screwed," was Garcia's conclusion.

Morgan wrapped his arm around his blond companion. "We're not screwed, baby. We're just in a bit of a tight spot."

"But, if we stay in here we should be able to monitor every entrance to the living room and keep possible UnSubs from entering." JJ placed her hands on her hips and sighed. "The door unlocks in eight hours, we should be able to hold the fort for that long, shouldn't we?"

The team agreed. Hotch and Morgan each took a poker from beside the fire place, holding them tightly as they guarded the entrances to the room; there were two of them. One led to the hallway where they came from, one led into an adjacent room.

A few minutes passed by. Then a few more. And a few more.

The house was dead silent. Everyone tried to keep as quiet as humanly possible to be able to detect any approaching menace. But there was nothing. The house was as empty of sounds as it had been when they first woke up.

Reid stood beside one of the large bookshelves, eying the literature. Most of the books he had already read, but there were a few he'd never heard of. He made sure to remember the titles so he could read them when he got out of this house. _If_ he got out of this house.

Gideon looked at his young protégé and smiled slightly to himself, knowing exactly what the junior agent was doing.

_Not even at a time like this can he bring himself to not improve his knowledge._

Morgan looked at Garcia, who sat snuggled up in the sofa next to JJ. The two women stayed close to each other, nearly sitting on each other's lap.

_Poor baby girl. How did we get you involved in this damn __mess? You should be home getting your beauty sleep by now. Not that you need it, though._

JJ would never admit to it, but she was terrified; utterly and completely terrified. She'd hated the woods ever since she was little girl. There was a reason, but there was no way she'd ever disclose it to anyone, anywhere. But being locked up in this house in the middle of an opaque forest made all the memories resurface, and she wanted to cry from sheer panic. Repressing the tears, she bit down on her lip until it bled; only then could she focus on something other than the fierce fear coursing through her system.

Sitting on the other side of the couch, Emily felt another wave of nausea rise inside her – and this time there was no stopping it. Slamming her hand over her mouth, she leaned over as she tried to get up from the sofa. Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through her stomach. Opening her mouth to cry out, the only thing emerging from her throat was the meatloaf she'd had for dinner the night before.

She fell to her knees on the floor, wincing in pain as she held her stomach with both arms.

JJ flew from her place on the couch to help her colleague. "Emily!"

The men standing around them rushed to the sofa, except Morgan and Hotch who had assigned themselves to guard the entrances. The watched in concern as the others helped Emily back onto the couch.

"Prentiss, are you okay?" Rossi had taken one of her arms as he and JJ lifted the nearly limp woman, placing her on the sofa.

Emily didn't speak. She held her stomach, wriggling in what appeared to be great pain. Only small noises escaped her as she tried to cry out or talk.

_Help me!_ she screamed inside herself. _For God's sake, help me!!_

"Emily! Oh, God – Emily!" JJ held her colleague's arm as the brunette began shaking and foaming at the mouth.

Emily's eyes stared straight out into nothing. She could feel her face contort from the cramps spreading from her stomach to the rest of her extremities, reaching the face with awesome force. The woman clamped her cramping arms down onto her aching stomach, shaking uncontrollably.

Her breathing came in short, strained bursts until a powerful cough ripped through her throat, sending a massive spray of blood straight up into the air, hitting Reid square in the face as he was trying to hold her down while she was seizing.

The young agent fell backwards in pure surprise, blinking through the cascade of blood that had been splashed over his features. "Oh, my God..!"

"Prentiss! Jesus Christ! Hotch, help!" Rossi turned to his superior; panic in his eyes as he tried to keep Emily from shaking her way out of the couch.

Hotch threw the poker on the floor, rushing over to the group. Taking Reid's place behind Emily, he pushed her upper body back onto the headrest. "Emily! Can you hear me?! Emily?!"

But Emily heard nothing. She drew a long, strained and gurgling breath, before releasing it accompanied by a river of blood flowing from her mouth. The shaking seized, and she was still; her eyes still staring straight into nothingness, now glazed and lifeless.

The entire struggle was over in less than a minute.

"Good lord... Emily? Emily?" Rossi tried to make contact with the lifeless woman, shaking her shoulders. Putting two fingers to her carotis, his fear was justified.

There was no pulse to be found.

Shock was on his face as he lifted his head to meet the eyes of his superior. "She...she's dead."

Garcia burst into tears, pulling her legs up onto the couch; burying her face in her hands. Morgan was instantaneously at her side, putting sheltering arms around her shivering body.

JJ couldn't bring herself to let go of her friend's hand. What had just happened her? What happened? Her eyes were still wide in fear and shock, and filled with tears, as she felt a hand pull her away from her lifeless colleague. Rossi had taken her arm and led her from the couch. Just a few feet away, she collapsed in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

Gideon was on the floor beside his young protégé, trying to steady him. Reid had not yet moved after being doused with blood. He still sat blinking on the floor. The former agent wondered if the young man even had registered that Emily was gone.

_He's in shock._

Pulling a quilt off the couch, he placed it over the young man's shoulders and began rubbing them. The expression on Reid's face had not changed a fraction of an inch. His mouth was gaping and eyes were wide with sheer terror; his entire face and hair covered in the crimson blood of his female colleague.

Hotch stood over his motionless female colleague, looking at the bloodied woman lying before him. There was nothing he could say and nothing he could do; nothing could help her now. She was gone.

He had never felt more powerless. Looking around at his shocked and devastated colleagues, he felt something inside him snap.

_Who is doing this? Why? Why __**Why**_

No one spoke a word. No one, until Morgan released Garcia from his warm arms and stood up. There was rage written all over his face.

"What the hell is this?!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, aiming his voice at the ceiling. He flung his arms out to his sides. "I don't know who the hell you are, but if you think this is some kind of game, you sick _fuck_, you're wrong!"

"Morgan, calm down." Hotch tried to make his subordinate gather his emotions, but still understood his colleagues anguish. Hotch himself wouldn't mind getting his hands on the one responsible for this. But right now, they needed to keep their calm.

But Morgan continued. "I will find you, and I will _**kill you**_!"

"Morgan!" Garcia squeaked, tugging at her knight's arm.

Morgan regained his composure, closed his eyes and sat down on the coffee table in front of Garcia, resting his head in his hands.

Emily was dead. And none of them could really understand what had just happened. One of their colleagues had just been killed; probably been poisoned before even being put in the house. It was the work of an very disturbed, very calculating and very sinister person.

The woman was still on the couch, eyes staring emptily at the ceiling. None of the agents knew what to do. The only thing they knew for sure was that they were all in great danger.

Gideon sat by Reid, who had slowly begin to move again. Looking at his young friend, he sighed as the inevitable thought crossed his mind.

_Anyone could be next..._

Suddenly, from somewhere in the house, the team could hear a clear and melodic whisper; sending chills up their spines. It's message was no less disturbing than the one they had recieved some time earlier.

"_Eight little agents, locked in a house_

_They will scare no one, not even a mouse_

_The trust they've earned will be no more_

_As they venture deeper and start to explore_

_One__ agent got sick and then went to heaven_

_Lo and behold; __And then there were seven..."_

**A/N again: Well, who is going to be next..? Suggestions? I have ideas, but I do take requests if they are somple enough...!**


	3. And Then There Were Six

**A/N: Beta read by the Gubetastic editor frog - thanks doll! I'm glad not too many of you want to kill me for offing the characters, however; I do have a feeling that will change after this chapter. **

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter! If you don't like that stuff, don't read it! Do NOT flame me, you have been warned!!**

Beginning to realize the seriousness of the situation they were in, the BAU decided they had to arm themselves. Someone was in the house; determined to terminate the team. One of them had already fallen victim to whoever had arranged this game of terror, and they were not about to let the count rise. Staying close to each other, they ventured into the kitchen with the hope of finding knives or something otherwise sharp as a means to defend themselves.

Emily had been left on the couch. No one could bring themselves to move her from the place where death had so crudely come upon her. Hotch had placed a quilt over her, covering her from head to toe. As he looked into her empty eyes one last time before pulling the cover over her head, he saw every bit of pain and suffering she had endured during her struggle against the grim reaper.

_Whoever did this..._ he closed his eyes as he pulled the quilt over her, silently bidding his teammate goodbye.

The team rummaged around in the kitchen drawers, searching for something that could be used as a weapon; but the cabinets and drawers were nearly empty. All they could find was a bread knife and a peeler.

Hotch and Morgan had fetched the pokers from the living room, holding them tightly. They now had four weapons, but there were seven of them.

"The voice said that somewhere in this house there are standard-issue FBI guns," Hotch said turning to his subordinates.

"And what makes you so sure it's telling the truth?" Morgan held the poker so hard in his hand his knuckles went white. He wanted to find whoever did this, and have his way with him – and not the good way.

"Nothing. But we still have to search the house."

"Says who?" JJ said standing next to Rossi. "We'll just lock ourselves in a cupboard and wait there until morning!"

"Fifteen minutes ago we were going to stay in the living room for the duration, and look how far that got us." Morgan retorted. "Emily's dead!"

"Morgan!" Hotch held his hand up as if trying to calm his subordinate down. "We don't need this right now. What we need to do is find whoever is doing this and put an end to it."

Rossi sighed. "If the profile's correct – which I assume it is – we are dealing with someone very dangerous."

"The best defense is a good offence," said Hotch as he handed the peeler to JJ. "Morgan and Rossi, you go upstairs with me and Reid – when he gets back from the bathroom. Gideon stays here with Garcia and JJ."

"Not a chance, Hotch." Morgan shook his head.

"What?"

"No offence, but with some psycho out there wanting to kill us, I don't want Garcia to stay here, especially not with..." The words got stuck in his throat as he really didn't want to say it. But it was true; if there was one person in this house he didn't trust completely – it was Gideon.

"Hotch, I..." JJ began, looking imploringly at her superior. She didn't want to be left with Gideon either. Not after his actions towards the team. The young woman simply didn't trust him.

Hotch became slightly irritated, but understood his subordinates, and quickly rearranged the order of pairing. "Morgan and Garcia, upstairs. JJ and Rossi with me. Reid stays with Gideon and searches the downstairs. And I don't have the time to argue anymore."

He lay down the law, and the team agreed with his decision. Reid was probably the only one who wanted to be teamed up with the former agent at this time, and Hotch couldn't afford to have his team turn on each other; not even the least.

"We wait here until they come back."

-o-o-o-

Gideon had helped Reid find a bathroom to wash his face clean of the sticky blood covering his features. As Reid leaned over the sink splashing water on himself, Gideon looked at him from a distance. He no longer resembled the young adept he had come to know years ago. The boy had grown up so rapidly, it took the older man by surprise.

The young genius leaned heavily on the porcelain sink, hanging his head. "Why, Gideon?" His voice was small and hoarse.

"I don't know, Reid. This is a depraved individual..."

"That's not what I meant," Reid interrupted him; still not letting his head lift from its bowed position. "I meant _you_."

Gideon closed his eyes. He knew the question would come. It had just been a matter of time. And he knew Reid would be the one to ask him.

"Reid... I don't think this is the time and place for this."

"Then when is? Huh?" The young man's head snapped up and he gave his former mentor an accusing stare. "Of all people, Gideon, I-I never thought..." Reid couldn't continue because of the lump in his throat. So much had happened in less than an hour, and so many emotions collided inside him. Feeling the sudden need to vomit, the young man once again bent his head over the sink, retching into the flowing water.

Gideon rushed over to his protégé, grabbing his arms. "Good God, Reid! No!" The older agent instantly felt his heart kick into overdrive as he held his adept while the young man spewed his insides out.

_Not Reid! Oh, God – not Reid!!_

Reid couched as he breathed heavily. His stomach was in utter turmoil, but recognizing the feeling and placing it in the "too-much-stress"-category, he straightened his frame in front of the bathroom cabinet. Seeing his own freakishly pale reflection in the mirror, he shuddered.

As he saw himself in the mirror, he also saw the older man standing behind him; concern and fear written all over his face.

"Reid... Are you all right?"

The young man nodded as he looked straight into the reflecting eyes of his friend. "How could you, Gideon? How could you leave me?" Tears hit his eyes, and he let them out. Turning around, he pounded a fist straight into his former mentor's chest. "I trusted you!" Another fist. "I believed in you!"

Reid kept assaulting Gideon until the former agent grabbed his wrists and forced him to stop.

The young man cried heavily. "I hated you..."

Gideon pulled the boy into his arms, holding him in an almost bruising grip as his young adept cried from the bottom of his heart.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You were the one person I never wanted to hurt." The older man dug his fingers into the wet, tousled curls resting on his chest. "Spencer..."

-o-o-o-

As the two men eventually returned to the others they were informed of the plan. Both men were fine with the arrangement of searching the downstairs.

And so they split up.

-o-o-o-

Reid and Gideon slowly explored the first floor of the large house. Searching drawers and cabinets for anything that could be used as a weapon. The scouting seemed fruitless until Reid pulled out a heavy drawer of a large bureau.

The sight greeting him was a standard issued semi-automatic standard issued Glock 23. Reaching into the drawer, he pulled out the piece and checked the clip. It was full, carrying the standard 13 rounds of ammo.

"Gideon." He showed the gun to the older man, who nodded in consent.

"Good."

-o-o-o-

Hotch entered the bedroom on the second floor first, poker at shoulder height; ready to attack. JJ and Rossi followed close behind. The room, like the other three they'd been in already, was empty.

On the nightstand, Rossi spotted a Glock, partially hidden under a big lampshade. Retrieving it, the group felt the slightest bit safer as they ventured on into the next room. This time, Rossi walked at the head, aiming the gun into the unknown.

-o-o-o-

Garcia stayed close to Morgan as they explored the rooms on the other side of the staircase. The poker was their only weapon, and Morgan held it tight as he took a few steps into the room.

"Stay there, baby." He halted Garcia in the doorway. Stepping into what seemed to be the master bedroom, the fortified agent raised the poker in front of his chest, ready for anything.

But he never saw it coming.

The sharp pain as something sliced its way straight across his throat paralyzed him. Dropping the poker on the floor, the agent clamped his hand on his throat; only to feel his fingers sink into open flesh.

A gargling sound emerged from Morgan's mouth as it opened to call out for Garcia to get away.

"Morgan?"

He could hear her voice is if on the other side of the house; it was only a dull echo in his head.

The lack of oxygen got to him, making him drop to his knees, still holding his throat. Blood pulsated through his fingers as he desperately tried to gain a single breath of air.

"Morgan!!" He heard her again, from even further away.

Mouth gasping for air and his eyes wide in terror, he slumped over on the floor; clawing at the carpet below him. Moments later, he was still; a last gargle could be heard as blood stopped oozing from his throat.

All that could be heard was the hysteric screaming of a blonde audio/video technician, echoing throughout the house as she slowly slid down the wall into the corner of the room where the love of her life had just lost his life.

-o-o-o-

Everyone heard the horrifying scream as it pierced the dull silence of the mansion. Dropping all at hand, except the weapons, they ran to the place where the unending screams originated.

Hotch and Rossi arrived first. What they found would haunt them in their nightmares forever, should they be so lucky as to live through the night.

Morgan lay sprawled on the white carpeting; a pool of blood had formed under his head and chest. His eyes had the same glazed look as Emily's had earlier.

Garcia was curled up in a corner, screaming in panic; covering her eyes with her hands. The desperate howling emerging from the frightened woman more resembled that of an injured wolf than a human.

Hotch ran over to Morgan, desperate to find any sign of life in his colleague; but there was none. There was no pulse to be found.

Sighing, the superior drew a hand down his colleague's face, closing his eyes. He turned to the rest of the team who had arrived moments before, shaking his head.

"He's dead."

As JJ and Rossi managed to get Garcia out of the room – which was not an easy task – she calmed down moderately. Sobbing into JJ's shoulder as they sat in the hallway, she tried to regain some form of composure, but the panic and devastation inside her made it impossible.

"I..." she managed to press through her lips. "I... saw someone! He killed him! He killed Morgan! Morgan! Oh, God – Morgan!!" She was hysteric, tugging at her hair as she rocked back and forth.

"Calm down, Garcia." JJ tried to sooth her friend, when in fact she wanted nothing more than to scream at the top of her lungs herself.

"Did you see who it was?" Hotch crouched beside the women.

Garcia violently shook her head. "M-my glasses! I don't have my glasses! I can't see!" She continued crying, burying her face in the silk pajamas covering JJ's upper body; soaking it in tears.

All of a sudden, the melodic, whispering voice returned; sweeping through the house, making everyone freeze and listen as the hair on their necks rose. The simple childlike rhyme made everyone wince in anxiety.

"_Seven little agents, going on a chase_

_Some in __banter, some in embrace_

_Finding the treasures hid all around_

_But one of the treasures never was found_

_One ebony agent went hunting with sticks_

_He fell on the knife, and then there were six..."_

**A/N again: Now now, calm down. All I can say here is: keep reading, no matter what happens in the story. It will be worth it in the end. Whoever will be next..?**


	4. And Then There Were Five

**A/N: Much awaited, here is the next chapter! And thanks for not hunting me down for doing this to the team. I was warned that this story is becoming more and more AU, so I guess I should put that in the synopsis as well. Anyway... Beta read by the Gubelicious editor frog - thanks doll!**

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter! If you don't like it, don't read it! And don't flame me! You have been warned!**

Reid closed the door to the bedroom where his best friend lay, deprived of life and breath. He leaned against the white wooden door, running his hands over his face, wiping away the salty tears from his pale cheeks. Morgan was gone, lying in a pool of blood – and no one had been able to help him.

The young agent felt so helpless. Was there nothing he could have done?

The others had gone downstairs with Garcia, trying to calm her down. She was in a state of dissolution after watching Morgan die before her eyes. The blonde technician kept screaming that it should have been her, and between sobs and coughs she called out Morgan's name in despair.

Reid shook his head. This was pure insanity. Pushing a few brown curls out of his face he drew a deep breath and ventured down the dim staircase.

_One by one,_ he thought._ We're dying one by one._

-o-o-o-

Downstairs in the dining room adjoining the kitchen, Garcia sat in the sofa with JJ beside her, crying silently. She had calmed down somewhat from the shock, and clung to her colleague's pajamas like a small child. She was devastated over losing Morgan. He was the most important man in her life, and now he was gone.

It physically hurt as she thought about Morgan's lifeless body falling to the floor with a sickening thump. The one thing Garcia was thankful for was that his head had been turned the other way. She never had to see life disappear from his eyes.

JJ held her friend and colleague close as she looked at the men around her. Hotch was stoic as usual, but the armor was getting cracked. Losing two team members in less than two hours was getting to him, and JJ could see his eyes turn moist every now and then as he sat on a chair by the windows, contemplating what to do next.

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. As much as the team wanted to trust each other, there was a certain air of suspicion hanging over the members of the BAU. And all suspicion was directed at the same person.

Gideon.

The former agent knew he would be the object of this suspicion, and had come to terms with it. Despite the fact that it hurt him deeply that the people he worked so close with for such a long time had completely lost their trust in him. Standing by an oak dresser, he could see the distrust in nearly all of their eyes as they avoided making contact with the older man.

All but Reid. He looked at his former mentor with so much pain in his eyes, so much disappointment. Gideon had not yet had a chance to explain to his protégé the true reasons behind his sudden and unexpected departure, and seeing the young man look at him with so much suffering emerging from his brown eyes caused the former agent's heart to painfully break into a thousand pieces. All he could do right now was to silently apologize to the young man who looked at him imploringly, as if once again asking "why?".

Reid looked at his former mentor. He could see the older man was in pain. A part of him hurt along with him, but a bigger part was glad; glad that the man he once looked up to, the man he once idolized, felt the aftermath of his actions.

Garcia sat sobbing in the couch next to JJ. She couldn't comprehend that Morgan was actually gone. Refusing to let go of her friend's pajamas, she clung to it for dear life. She felt the couch shifting slightly as Reid sat down beside her, placing an arm around her.

"I'm sorry, Garcia. I know how much he meant to you." The young doctor leaned over and placed his head next to hers, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

The only thing getting Garcia through this moment was the feeling of having her closest friends around her. Closing her eyes, she drew a breath and squeezed Reid's hand which was resting on her leg.

Rossi paced by the windows. There were so many things not adding up in this house. Who was in there with them, and why was he slowly killing off his team? If he had wanted to kill them all, why not just blow up the house; or burn it down?

_This is all about the game. The UnSub wants to watch us break down and turn on each other. It's a mind game._

He drew away the curtains from one of the windows and looked outside once again. The pitch black forest looked less than inviting, but he would choose it over this house from hell any day.

As he put his hands on the window sill and leaned over, his fingers bumped against something lying a few inches behind the curtain. Looking down, he discovered something that made his heart skip a beat.

It was a Desert Eagle Mark XIX .50 AE, with a laser sight. Picking up the heavy piece in his hand, he turned to the rest of the team.

"I think there are still weapons in the house."

The others looked at the powerful handgun, hoping that whoever was in the house didn't have one of those as well.

"We have to have another look around." Hotch proclaimed rising from the chair. "I'll feel a lot better when everyone is armed. At least then we have a fair chance."

The others nodded in agreement, but Garcia grabbed a firm hold of the couch. "I'm not moving. I'm not going back up there." Shaking her head she refused to budge from her position.

"You can't stay down here, Garcia. It's too dangerous." Hotch tried to get his subordinate to think rationally, but to no avail. She kept shaking her head frantically.

Reid looked up from his place on the sofa, eyes connecting with those of his superior. "I'll stay with her. I have a gun." The young doctor was in no mood to be paired up with Gideon again, who had not said more than a word to him since he found the gun in the dresser. Knowing none of the others would want to go with him, he would surely be paired off with him.

He'd rather stay with Garcia.

Hotch nodded. "All right. You stay here, and keep your eyes open. JJ, you go with Rossi. Gideon..." He paused to look at his former colleague. "...you are going with me."

Gideon nodded and followed Hotch up the stairs. JJ and Rossi was right behind them, Rossi holding his Desert Eagle aimed ahead of him, ready to fire at anything that moved that wasn't a part of his team.

-o-o-o-

Garcia and Reid sat on the couch, the blonde woman snuggling up to the young doctor; still sobbing slightly. He stroke her hair as he looked out through the window. The darkness outside gave him the creeps. He shuddered at the very thought of what could be lurking out there. The only upside here was that the lights in the house were still reasonably bright.

"It's so hard..." Garcia squeaked into Reid's shoulder.

Reid held her tighter. "I know..." He didn't know what else to say to the woman struggling with all kinds of feelings inside. Loss, desperation, fear and grief; only a few of the emotions he could imagine circling inside his poor colleague. All he could do was hold her.

-o-o-o-

JJ held the peeler in her hand as she followed Rossi into the rooms, one by one. They were re-checking every room for hidden weapons, this time more thoroughly. So far, the hunt had been less than successful. No weapons had been found, but at least this time they checked behind the curtains. The small red dot from Rossi's laser sight darted over the walls as they entered the second room on the right upstairs. A bedroom. A very empty bedroom.

-o-o-o-

Hotch and Gideon slowly walked down the hallway, approaching the doorway to another room. Hotch held the gun high, aiming it straight forward as they turned a corner. As they entered the next room, both men readied themselves for what might be about to come.

But the room was silent and empty. Searching it carefully, the men didn't say a word; not until Hotch lowered the gun, turning to his former colleague.

"I suppose I should ask you why you left."

Gideon sighed, knowing that the question was doomed to surface more than once during the time in the house. He didn't have time to answer his former superior before Hotch continued.

"But the thing is; I don't really care. You have issues, we all know that, but that still doesn't give you the right to abandon everything and leave."

Gideon drew a breath and opened his mouth to say something, not knowing what, but never had the chance as Hotch continued his speech.

"You should know this though; you hurt someone more than anyone when you left, and I know you know who I'm referring to. He took your departure very hard, and it took him a long time to even manage to deal with it. I'm not even sure if he's over it yet."

Hotch felt anger rise inside him as he spoke to his former subordinate, and tried his best to restrain his emotions, knowing he had to let the man before him know the damage he caused by leaving.

"Did you even care about how he would take it? Couldn't you at least have talked to him? Your presence here hasn't exactly helped him in his recovery. Gideon, there are very few – if any – people in this house right now that trust you, and frankly – I don't know if I do either. " He couldn't go on in fear of physically lashing out at Gideon, so he turned away, searching a dresser.

Gideon stood in the other end of the room, knowing that anything he said would fall upon deaf ears. Hotch had already made up his mind. He knew the others didn't trust him, but Hotch?

-o-o-o-

"I feel sick." Garcia sat up straight in the couch, running her hand through her hair.

"Do you need to go to the bathroom?" Reid asked anxiously.

"No... Water. I need water." Garcia held her mouth as she looked at her colleague next to her on the couch.

Reid rose, still holding Garcia's hand. "Stay here, I'll get you some."

Holding the gun, the young doctor walked into the kitchen, and began searching the cupboards for a glass. Finding one in the very back of the cabinet over the sink, he filled it with water. Feeling his own throat being dry as well, he first finished the glass for himself, and then refilled it for Garcia.

The hand roughly grabbing his hair from behind caught him by total surprise as it yanked his head back. Dropping both the gun and the glass, his head was violently slammed into the cabinet in front of him.

As he slumped to the floor, the young doctor felt his world turn into a blur; a warm liquid flowing down his face. Reid could still hear the sounds around him, but only shadows danced before his eyes.

He saw movement in front of him, someone moved into the dining room. The young man tried to call out, but his entire body was malfunctioning, and all he could do was to lie on the floor and watch.

The movement in the dining room consisted only of shadows and blurs, but he could hear the sounds. He heard Garcia's muffled cries, he heard her fight for her life against an unknown assailant. There was a thud, and then – silence ensued.

As Reid eventually regained his mobility and sight, he held the kitchen counter and supported himself to a standing position. Looking into the living room, a ghastly sight came before him.

Garcia lay on the floor in the middle of the room, a transparent plastic bag over her head. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. As Reid staggering approached her, he could see the tongue hang out of his colleague's mouth. She had turned a faint shade of blue.

"Help! Oh God! Help! Hotch, Rossi!"

He fell to his knees as he heard the rapid footsteps in the staircase. When the rest of the team came rushing into the dining room, guns drawn, they were met by a grisly view.

The young doctor had just finished ripping off the plastic bag covering Garcia's head and was searching for a pulse.

"Reid?" Hotch stuck his gun into the lining of his boxers as he knelt beside his frightened subordinate.

Reid shook his head slowly. "No."

JJ nearly hyperventilated. "What... No! You were supposed to protect her, Reid! What the hell!?" The angry stare she gave her youngest colleague wasn't made any better by the fact that she now clutched the peeler so hard her knuckles whitened.

"I-I-I just went to the kitchen!" Reid tried to explain, tears filling his eyes. "I was getting her water, and-and-and someone slammed my head in the cupboard!"

Now was the first time Hotch noticed the wound on Reid's forehead, and looked out into the kitchen. A large stain of blood had colored the light cabinet door a bright red. Reid's gun lay on the floor next to a small pool of blood and shards of a shattered glass.

"I couldn't... I..." Reid burst into tears and buried his face in his hands.

Hotch placed a hand on his shoulder, not saying a word, and looked at the others. JJ looked like she could freak out at any time. Rossi held his composure, and Gideon leaned back on a counter as he ran his hands over his head.

"This isn't happening... It's not!" JJ tried to convince herself that it was all just a bad dream, and that she would wake up at any time in her own bed.

Rossi on the other hand, knew this was no dream. Part of him wanted to smack the woman beside him for being so hysterical. But another part wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay.

"It _is_ happening, JJ. And we have to deal with it." He settled for telling her the truth, no matter how rough.

A tear fell down JJ's cheek as she turned away from the group and the corpse of her best friend. It hurt so horribly to have to live through this.

As they stood there in the dining room, the familiar melodic whisper was heard throughout the house; with a message no less disturbing than the last.

_Six little agents, looking for a ghost_

_Maybe the one that __haunts them the most_

_Who is the one who carries the blame?_

_Who of you is the one with the shame?_

_One agent remained with the wish to survive_

_She lost her breath, and then there were five..._

**A/N again: I've said it once and I'll say it again: Please don't kill me.**


	5. And Then There Were Four

**A/N: Beta read by the Gubetastic editor frog - thanks doll! Oh, I'm gonna die...! **

**!! Warning !! Character death!! If you don't like it, don't read it! And don't flame me! You have been warned!!**

The team couldn't bear going into the rooms where their dead co-workers lay, and moved themselves into the hallway. JJ was twisting her hands, the peeler slipping around in her loose fist. As the hours went, she felt herself coming closer and closer to snapping. Seeing her friends die was getting to her. The young woman was no stranger to death, it played a major part of her everyday life, but this was different. These were her friends. Her _family_.

Reid leaned against the wall, holding his forehead. His head felt like someone put it in a blender and hit "gooify". Wiping the sticky blood from his brow, he tried to gain full control of his mind again. He felt a hand on his arm.

It was Gideon.

"Come on, let's get you washed up."

"Don't touch me!" Reid tore loose from the older man's grip and took a step away from him. Things were getting too intense for the young doctor to handle. "Don't come here and play that father-son game with me; it doesn't _work_ anymore!" Reid was nearly shouting out his frustration.

His fellow team members watched, partially in awe, as they had never seen their young genius speak up like this against anyone, let alone Gideon.

"People are _dying_, Gideon; and you want to bond?!" Waving his arms in the air, he stepped closer to the older man; who in returned backed away an equal distance, a shocked expression on his face. But Reid didn't stop. The floodgates had opened, and everything he'd had inside him came pouring out, despite current situation and company.

"You don't even know how much I _hated_ you when you left; how much I hated _myself_! I thought it was my fault that you took off, but thank God – I had some _real_ friends who could tell me how wrong I was! It's your doing, Gideon – you deal with it. I'm done. Don't talk to me, don't touch me, and don't even come near me."

With that he turned around and walked away down the hallway, leaving his team behind. He didn't know what was waiting in the house, but anything was better than being close to that man. He'd rather be alone.

Hotch watched the whole scene, and as Reid had disappeared behind a corner, he began to follow him; motioning the rest to stay behind. As he passed Gideon, he slowed down enough for the older man to hear him.

"I think you just lost the one person who trusted you."

Then the superior continued on his way to find his youngest subordinate.

Gideon stood as if frozen, looking down the hallway where the two men had just vanished. He didn't need his profound knowledge about the human behavior to come to the conclusion that he truly had lost his young protégé.

Rossi crossed his arms over his chest, having seen the spectacle before him.

_It's understandable to loose a bit of composure at a time like this, but we still have to try to get along if we're gonna get out of here..._he thought, looking at Gideon, who was still staring down the hallway. He then turned his look towards the young blonde on his right, who was still fidgeting and flicking the peeler in her hands.

_Stick me with the __whack-job and the hysterical woman, why don't you..._

-o-o-o-

Hotch caught up to Reid as he rounded a corner upstairs. Grabbing his arm, the superior stopped his colleague.

"Reid."

As Reid reluctantly turned around, Hotch could see the tears running down his bloodied face. There was hurt and desperation in the young man's huge puppy eyes as he looked at his superior.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have, I..." he sobbed pitifully. "I'm just so scared!"

Hotch grabbed the young man by the shoulders and pulled him into an embrace. He knew the young man before him was in an incredible amount of pain right now, and even though it wasn't really standard procedure for Hotch to hug the subordinates, he felt it was necessary. Reid sobbed in his arms as warm tears streamed down his cheeks onto Hotch's shoulder, soaking his t-shirt.

"You have every right to be angry, Reid. But you might have to wait until we get out of here."

Reid's sobs settled after a while, as Hotch still held him in his arms. "It was my fault."

"What?" Hotch almost couldn't hear the small voice emanating from his discouraged colleague.

"Garcia. JJ's right. I should have protected her. It's my fault she's dead."

"No, Reid." Hotch slowly shook his head. "It's not your fault. The only person to blame for this is the one who put us in this house."

A few hoarse breaths could be heard from the young man trying to regain his composure. "Hotch...?"

"Yes, Reid?"

"Was that door open before?"

Letting go of each other, the two men turned to face the door down the hall; the door to the room where Morgan had been brutally murdered. They had closed the door earlier, as they left their dead colleague. Now the door was open.

Hotch grabbed the gun from the lining of his boxers, aiming it in front of him. Lacking a weapon, Reid stayed behind his superior as they slowly approached the room.

As Hotch pushed the door to a full opening with the gun, both of the men gaped.

Morgan was gone.

-o-o-o-

JJ paced the floor in the hallway, trying to calm herself down. Rossi stood only a few feet away, leaning against the wall, and Gideon had placed himself with his back against the two a bit down the hall.

"This isn't real..." she mumbled. "This isn't happening. No one's dead, I'm just dreaming all of this, it's not real." She needed her mantra to keep what little balance she had left in her system.

Rossi was getting fed up with his female colleague's refusal to accept the situation. Not only were they stuck in this godforsaken house, he also had to listen to this distraught woman chanting nonsense beside him.

"JJ, you need to get it through your head that this _is_ happening. There's nothing we can do right now but stay together and try to stay alive."

He hoped the short assessment of the situation was enough to settle the woman down, but it had the opposite effect.

"Nothing we can do?" JJ looked at him, a mix between fear and anger in her eyes. "We are _dying_ one by one, and there's nothing we can do?! Goddamnit, Rossi! Is that the best comforting you can come up with? Just shut up!"

"JJ!" Gideon had turned around and faced the young woman. His voice was stern and slightly annoyed. "If you panic now, there's no turning back. You need to calm down."

JJ stared at her former colleague. In her mind, not a word he said sounded reasonable. "Shut up, Gideon! Like you have any saying right now! You are the one person in this house I can actually imagine being behind this; if what the voice said was true! So shut up!"

Racing down the hallway, Rossi right behind her, JJ threw herself on the iron door, banging it furiously with her fists. "Let me out! Let me out!"

Rossi grabbed the frantic woman as he reached her and pulled her away from the door, as she all the while threw her fists around her, trying to tear loose from her colleague's strong hands.

"No! Let me go! I have to get out! I have to get out! I don't wanna die!"

"You're not gonna die! JJ!" Rossi shook her violently, trying to clear her mind and reach her. But the woman kept hitting his chest and arms in attempts to get away from his grip, and the man realized he had no choice.

Letting go of her arms, Rossi let her take a step back before he sent his palm straight across JJ's already bright red face. The slap wasn't hard enough to cause any damage, but made JJ freeze.

Holding her cheek, she stared at Rossi. The sudden jolt of reality literally hit her in the face, and she returned to the real world. "Rossi... I..." She shook her head.

"It's okay. Are you all right? I didn't want to do that, you know that, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

Rossi looked at the timer on the door. He sighed. It felt like three days had passed, but in reality only about 4 hours had passed. The timer ticked down, it was now at 4.19 and counting.

_Will this nightmare never end?_

Suddenly, he heard JJ's trembling voice. "Rossi?"

"Yes, JJ?"

"Where's Emily?"

He looked around into the living room, following JJ's glance. What he saw made his heart skip more than one beat.

Emily was gone.

-o-o-o-

"Where is he?" Reid whispered as they slowly walked into the room, Hotch pointing his gun into every corner.

Hotch didn't answer. His concentration was placed solely on the room, knowing that lack of focus at a moment like this would most likely be fatal.

Once the room had been secured, Hotch turned to his subordinate, not putting away his gun. "This is wrong. Where did he go?"

"You don't think that..." Reid began.

"No. No, I don't." Hotch was not ready to place blame on anyone in his team. Besides, he had felt Morgan's carotis himself – there had been nothing there.

"Whoever is doing this has taken him; put him somewhere, to make us suspect him or each other."

A logical conclusion.

"Call the others. We need them up here." Hotch looked through a dresser, remembering that this room was never officially searched for weapons. And indeed, he found another gun; another Glock. But this one had only 2 bullets in it.

Reid took a few steps into the hallway and opened his mouth to call out for the others. Before he could make a sound, a dull thump came from the other side of the staircase. Looking over the dark-carpeted floors and dusky walls, he couldn't spot the source of the sound.

Turning his head as he stood in the hallway, he tried to catch Hotch's attention. "Hotch" he whispered. "I heard something."

And as Hotch turned, he saw something. A bright red dot darting over Reid's chest, moving up towards his head. Reid was oblivious as he looked at his superior in expectation of an answer.

"Reid, get down! Get down!" Hotch dropped everything he held, leaping over the bed in an attempt to push his dumbfounded colleague out of harms way.

But it was too late.

Before Hotch even reached the end of the bed, a gunshot rang through the house. Hotch saw the young doctor's head jerk back as the bullet penetrated his head, knocking him to the ground with a thud.

"**NO!!**" Hotch tripped over a nightstand, falling on the floor; straight into the pool of blood still lingering in the carpet. He frantically crawled out into the hallway, trying to reach Reid.

The young doctor lay in the corridor, limbs sprawled in every which direction. As Hotch reached Reid, a knot twisted tightly in his stomach.

The young man was dead. The bullet had pierced his left temple, leaving a pool of nearly black blood in his tousled hair. Reid's mouth was wide open in terror, his lips cracked and dry.

Hotch felt sick.

The eyes. He had seen dead eyes before, but these... So full with fear and terror, staring straight at him as if saying "why didn't you save me?"

He could hear footsteps running up the stairs.

"Hotch! We heard a gunshot! What hap..." Rossi stopped short when he saw his superior kneeling beside the body of the young agent. "Oh, God."

"The shot came from over there!" Hotch yelled and pointed in the opposite direction as he tried desperately to steady his voice.

Rossi fumbled at the lining of his pajama pants for his gun, but it was nowhere to be found. "Hotch! Give me your gun!"

"Where's yours?"

"I don't know, downstairs I think."

Giving Rossi his gun, Hotch watched the older man run down the hallway in search for a psychotic murderer.

He also saw JJ. And JJ was losing it.

She stood by the staircase, shaking her head while running her hands through her hair, violently yanking it. "He's not dead! He can't be dead!! He's Reid! Reid _can't_ die!!" She screamed in anguish.

"JJ, I'm sorry..."

"This is your fault! I'm not supposed to be here! I don't wanna die! Reid!! Wake up!!" Her voice became more and more hysterical with every word she uttered.

"He's dead, JJ – he won't wake up!" Hotch tried to make contact with the panicking woman by the staircase.

JJ said nothing, but turned around, racing down the stairs; her every breath a small scream. On her way down, she ran straight into Gideon who was on his way up. She shoved him aside, and ran down into the hallway.

Gideon let her run. He had also heard the gunshot and run upstairs after the others. As he saw Reid on the floor beside the kneeling Hotch, he could no longer hold his balance. Falling to his knees next to the lifeless body, he let his eyes meet with those of his superior.

"Is he..?"

"Yes."

"My God..."

Hotch looked at his former colleague through his own tears. "Where were you?"

"What?" the older man asked somewhat confused.

"Why didn't you come up with the others?"

"I was in the kitchen, they were in the hallway. Is there something you want to say to me, Hotch?" Gideon looked at his former superior, not believing what he was hearing.

"Why do you have Rossi's gun?" Hotch nodded towards the Desert Eagle in Gideon's hand. The only gun in the house with a laser sight.

"I have Reid's gun too. They were both left downstairs. You can't be serious, Hotch."

Hotch shook his head, slowly. "I don't know what to believe anymore, Gideon. Morgan's body's gone."

"So's Emily's. And Garcia's."

"What?"

"They're both missing. No traces of blood, nothing."

"What the hell is going on here?"

As the two men sat by their lifeless companion, the perverted child's rhyme once again swept through the house, along with a cold wind of despair.

_Five little agents,__ losing their trust_

_Seeing each other through eyes of disgust_

_Who is the saint, who is the sinner?_

_Who will stand tall in the end as the winner?_

_One agent was shot and fell to the floor_

_He gave up his life, and then there were four..._

**A/N again: Calm down, calm down! I know I've done the unthinkable, but bear with me on this. It's critical for the plot. Stick with me, it will all be worth it in the end! Come on, don't you wanna know who shot resident genius!?**

**Please don't kill me.**


	6. And Then There Were Three

**A/N: Phew, I survived the Reid-whacking! Surprisingly enough. Okay, we're nearing the end now!! Short but intense, and a bit gross. I should put a warning on this one. Beta read by the Gubetastic editor frog - thanks doll!**

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter, very graphic! If you don't like that stuff, don't read it! And don't flame me! You have been warned!**

JJ raced through the house, searching for somewhere to hide.

_I should have listened to myself! _she thought._ I should have hidden when all this begun! They can't kill you if they can't find you!_

The events in this house were quickly wearing on her thought processes. She had no idea why she was reacting like this; usually she was a calm and together person, but now all form of sense seemed to have left her. They'd been replaced by hysteria and panic. There was nothing she could do about it but let it happen.

Running through the first floor, she yanked every doorknob she could find, most of them being locked. Fear was rising higher and higher inside her, threatening to make her scream out loud.

Finally, a door opened, and she threw herself inside, turning the key to securely lock it after her. Panting, she leaned her forehead on the brown wooden door. Wherever she had locked herself up smelled very strange.

Turning around, she fumbled for a light switch. As she found it and turned on the light, she found herself in a walk-in-pantry. Food supplies and other necessities were lined up on shelves running across the walls. The pantry was about 6 by 9 ft and most of the space was occupied by the shelves.

It made her feel safe. No one was in there. No one could come in. She was safe. Gasping to find her breath, she slid down against the door until she sat on the floor.

_Good God. Why is this happening? I don't want to die! Oh, God... Reid..._

-o-o-o-

Gideon and Hotch still sat by the young agent lying motionless on the floor. The older agent reached out and slowly closed Reid's staring eyes, and carefully shut his gaping mouth.

There was an awkward silence between the two men. None of them knew what to say. So much had happened in the short period of time since they arrived in this house of terror, and there had been not nearly enough time to deal with it.

Emily. Morgan. Garcia. And now Reid. The same thought flew through both agents' heads.

_Who will be next?_

Hotch looked at his former colleague. "Do you have any idea who is doing this?"

Gideon shook his head. "No. But have you noticed that someone's missing?"

"Morgan?"

"No. Someone who should be here with us."

Hotch caught on. "Elle."

"Yes." Gideon nodded. "I'm here. Why isn't she? She's a former member of the team too."

"You don't think that...?"

Gideon ran his bloody, shaking hand over his head, leaving a trace of blood in his silver hair. "Like you, I don't know what to think anymore. I know everyone in this house thinks I orchestrated all of this, but I swear to God – I had nothing to do with this! I woke up here just like you."

Hotch sighed. "I know, Gideon. I'm trying not to place blame or suspect anyone. It's not possible that one of us is responsible for all this, that's not even an option."

"No, it's not." Gideon looked at the young man before him. His chest didn't move. His skin was pale. His lips were blue. No blood pulsated from his wound. The older agent couldn't imagine who would want to do this to Reid. To this remarkable young man.

The world had been deprived of a great mind.

-o-o-o-

JJ sat on the floor of the pantry, looking at the food around her. Despite the fact that she was starving, she didn't even consider taking something to eat.

_Who knows what they've put in that food. I can manage. It's only a few more hours, __and then I can get out. Then I can get out. I'll be fine. I'll be alive._

Flicking the peeler between her fingers, she realized what a pathetic weapon it was. A peeler? What damage could she possibly do with that? What had Hotch though when he gave it to her?

_Of course! He didn't __**want**__ me to be able to defend myself! He wanted me to... Oh, my God – JJ! What are you thinking?!_

Shaking her head free from suspicion against her superior, the young woman decided to try and relax for a few moments. Her heart was racing and if she didn't calm her breathing down, she was in danger of passing out.

Drawing a few deep breaths, she let her head tip back against the door with a slight thud.

_Man, it smells terrible in here... And what is that sound? Ventilation?_

The barely audible hissing sound caught her ear, as she tried to locate the source.

-o-o-o-

Rossi slowly walked through the rooms on the far end of the hallway. He could no longer hear Gideon and Hotch by the staircase.

Pushing a door open with the barrel of his gun, he took a few steps inside. Another empty room. Slowly searching it, it came up even emptier – if possible.

Sighing, he wished that the two agents in the hallway would have enough sense as to follow procedure instead of mourning a dead colleague. Three more agents had died in a matter of hours, but not one of them had gotten the attention that this one had from the two men.

Procedure was to always go in teams.

Rossi was alone. JJ was alone.

Gideon and Hotch were together.

The gun in Rossi's hands didn't make him feel any safer. He needed someone to cover his six. He wanted to call out to the men, but he was too far away, and didn't want to attract attention to himself. Slowly he exited the room and ventured into the next in the search of the UnSub who shot Reid.

-o-o-o-

Something wasn't right. It had only been about five minutes since JJ had locked herself in the pantry, but something definitely wasn't right.

Her chest began hurting, and she was itching all over. Red hives began breaking out all over her arms and legs, in her face and on her chest.

JJ furiously scratched at the burning red rashes forming all over her body.

_What is going on?! My eyes, oh God! Can't... Breathe!_

As if someone had put burning coals in her eye sockets, JJ violently rubbed her eyes, trying to get the pain to stop. She suddenly remembered the low hissing sound she had heard earlier. It had transformed into a louder noise and she could physically feel the current blowing against her.

"Oh, God..! Gas!"

Nearly blinded from the searing pain, JJ struggled to rise; her chest shooting white pain through her body. Twisting the key to open the door, she tried pushing it open, only to find that it wouldn't budge.

The door was jammed.

"No... NO! Help! Hotch! Gideon! Help me!"

The young woman began banging her fists against the door, trying to gain attention; trying to break out of her prison.

She had to stop after only a few seconds. Breathing became harder and harder and she slumped to the floor once again. Furiously clawing at her itching skin, she tore up her arms and legs, leaving them in a bloody mess. The insane itching made her sink her nails deep into her skin and physically ripping it out, only to get rid of the burning sensation.

Breathing became a struggle. Unbeknownst to JJ, fluid was rapidly gathering in her lungs, slowly drowning her. Feeling her breath getting shorter and shorter, JJ tried to cry out to get some form of attention.

"Hrrraaahhh...!"

Throwing her hands to her face, JJ frantically clawed at the flames torturing her eyes and skin. Not even as her eyes began to bleed from the abuse of her nails did she stop. She tried calling out, but no sound came over her lips.

Manically chewing, the young woman tried to scratch the inside of her mouth and her tongue, which were itching tremendously. She felt blood stream down her chin and into her throat as she spat out the pieces of flesh she had gnawed of in an attempt to ease the itch.

She lay on the floor, hysterically clawing at her throat. No air entered her lungs, and lying down didn't exactly make it better. Every part of her body hurt, the pain worse than anything she'd ever felt before. She tried opening her eyes to see something – anything! But unknowingly the young woman had torn her eyes up so bad; they were no longer located in their sockets.

The mush running down her face was warm and itchy, and she frantically kept clawing at her throat to take a single breath. But just moments later, the lack of oxygen got the better of her, and with a last rattling breath, her arms fell flaccid to her sides.

The pantry fell silent once again, the young woman's struggle over. She now lay in a bloodied heap on the floor – drowned in her own fluids.

-o-o-o-

Gideon and Hotch had just risen from Reid's body. Knowing they had to leave him sooner or later, and also knowing that they had sat there for way too long.

All of a sudden, the deranged child's rhyme once again swept through the house, this time completely surprising the men, who jerked as the dull, melodic whisper blew by them.

_Four little agents, arguing away_

_One went hunting, one went astray_

_The end is getting closer, time is running out_

_Have you even figured out what it's all about?_

_One little agent chose to disagree_

_She drowned in herself, and then there were three..._

**A/N: Half of you are now cheering, the other half is sharpening knifes and lighting bonfires.. I should hurry up with the next chapter!**


	7. And Then There Were Two

**A/N: A bit short, but one have to keep the suspense.. Not much left now..! Beta read by the Gublerific editor frog!**

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter, also very graphic nastyness!! If you don't like that stuff, don't read it! And don't flame me!! You have been warned!!**

**--**

"What the hell? Who…?" Hotch's head snapped up as he listened to the end of the rhyme. "JJ!" Jumping to his feet he ran down the stairs, closely followed by his former colleague.

"JJ!" Gideon yelled as he raced through the hallway in search of the young woman who was presumed dead.

_There's no use in calling her_; Hotch thought._ She's not going to answer. When the rhyme comes they are already dead._

Against his better judgement, the men split up and seached the ground floor. Every room came up empty until Hotch reached a brown wooden door in the back of the kitchen. It was blocked by a chair.

"Gideon! Kitchen!"

As Gideon rushed in through the dining room, Hotch grabbed the chair, throwing it on the floor as he yanked the door open. The rank smell hitting them made both men cover their faces with hands and fabric.

The gas still remaining in the pantry was released into the kitchen, though the outlet had now been closed and no new gas was emitted.

The men had to step back to be able to breathe. Holding their breaths, they wafted the air in front of them, trying to open their burning eyes. It felt like tear gas, only ten times worse.

Hotch blindly searched the kitchen counter, knocking over a coffee maker in the process. Finally finding the faucet, he ran cold water in the sink, dousing his eyes in the clear, clean fluid. He only paused long enough to let Gideon soak his face in the cleansing water and he furiously continued rubbing his eyes.

"Good God! Gas!" Hotch panted as his lungs burned like fire.

"We didn't breathe in enough to..." Gideon paused to cough and spit up some blood in the sink. "Jesus Christ..."

"JJ..." Hotch could finally open his eyes without tears flowing down his cheeks, and covering his mouth and nose with his t-shirt, he took a few steps over towards the pantry. The sight meeting him was no less than grotesquely macabre.

JJ lay on her back, mouth gaping after a final attempt to breathe. Her arms and legs were torn to shreds, having bled all over her pajamas. Her formerly semi-long nails were broken off and most of them were still stuck in the exposed flesh on her face.

Hotch had to look away as his eyes reached the woman's face. There was close to nothing left of her classic features as her face more recembled minced meat.

He could no longer hold his stomach contents as he saw her eyes, which were no longer in their place. Hanging down the sides of her temples, a gray and white bloodied mess was all that remained of her baby blue eyes.

Falling to his knees, Hotch vomited right on the kitchen floor; the sight of his dead colleague in this horrible state was too much for him to handle. He lost control of his stomach, and felt himself more and more losing control of the situation as well.

_Jesus... What...is going on!? Who is doing this to us?!_

-o-o-o-

Rossi had also heard the rhyme chiming through the house, and had also heard the men racing down the stairs.

_For God's sake! I'm alone here! Will at least one of you follow procedure?!_

He had searched four rooms on this side of the staircase. This was where the gunshot had come from, and through the process of elimination – this was the only room left to search.

Readying himself, raising the gun in front of him, he carefully opened the white wooden door leading into the room.

The room was completely silent. Rossi knew that silence was no guarantee as to the security of the room, and slowly ventured into the green and yellow bedroom. A small light shone in the far left corner. This was the only light he had seen in this house that was on at full strength.

Opening a closet on his right, he found it empty.

Moving closer to the sliding door beside the massive four post bed, his hands began to shake as he held the gun more than tightly. This was it. This was the only place the shooter could be.

"FBI!" he half whispered, half croaked as he aimed the gun as steadily as he could at the white sliding doors, which probably led to a closet of some kind. "Drop the weapon and come out!"

As there was no answer, Rossi reached out a shaking hand and in one swift move slid the door open, quickly returning his hand to steady his aim.

But the closet was completely empty. No clothes, no hangers, no nothing. Just an empty space. Rossi knew this wasn't good.

Before he could react any further to the absence of UnSub in the closet, a searing pain shot through his heels. With a loud scream of pain, he fell to the floor, dropping his weapon and desperately clutching his heels.

Someone had cut his Achilles tendons on both heels.

Blood spurted from his wounds as he lay incapacitated on the floor, still howling from the pain.

A slight laughter caught his ear as he turned his head to the bed; or more accurately, under the bed. His contorting face stiffened as he saw the all too familiar features looking back at him from under the folded dust ruffle.

"What...? You?! How...?!"

He got no further as a hand flung up in front of his face, still holding the bloodied knife used to mutilate his feet. In one swift move, the hand lodged the broad kitchen knife deep in the right eye socket of the stunned agent, who let out a startled howl before his limbs fell limply to the carpeted floor.

A steady trickle of blood flowed from the impaled eye.

The figure hiding under the bed quickly crawled out, climbing over the dead agent before jumping into the closet, slamming the sliding door shut behind itself.

-o-o-o-

Gideon and Hotch had heard the howl of agony coming from upstairs. Racing up the stairs, they ran into room after room on the second floor, before Gideon came to a halt in a doorway; simply staring at the mess at his feet.

"Hotch."

Coming up behind him, Hotch stopped short as he saw the mutilated body of his colleague.

"Christ... Dave..." Feeling nausea rolling over him once again, Hotch staggered back out into the hallway, hanging over the railing by the staircase. He wanted nothing more than to jump. Anything would be better than this hell.

Gideon had closed the door behind him, leaned against it shortly and then walked up to his former superior, placing a now shaking hand on his shoulder.

"Gideon... What the hell is this? Everyone is dead! It's just... It's just you and me left. Good God, who did this!?" Feeling himself completely losing control, Hotch grabbed the railing tightly, and began to repeatedly bang his head on the solid wood – just to regain some form of clarity.

Gideon grabbed his shoulders, pulling him away from the railing. "Stop it. Hotch, _stop it!_" He shook his former colleague sharply. "You're not making it any better!"

Panting, Hotch felt his forehead aching from the abuse he had just inflicted upon it. His gaze moved past the aged agent before him and landed further down the hall. Hotch stopped breathing, and a shocked look came over his face.

"Hotch?" Gideon tried to make contact with the man.

"He's gone."

Turning around, Gideon saw what Hotch saw; or didn't see.

Reid's body was no longer laying on the floor by the staircase. They had both run past the place where it lay only a few moments ago. Neither had noticed it was missing.

"JJ."

The men stayed close to each other as they slowly walked down the stairs, both clutching their guns.

Reaching the pantry, neither man was surprised to find it empty. But this time there were traces. Drips of blood lead out into the dining room.

Raising their guns, the men slowly walked into the large room, carefully scouting it for any activity.

"She didn't just get up and walk away", Gideon whispered.

"No..." Hotch replied.

They followed the trail of blood until it came to a sudden end at a wall.

"What the...?"

As if on cue, the chilling child's rhyme began sounding through the house, this time more taunting than ever.

_Three little agents, crying for their friend_

_The game is about to come to an end_

_How long can you hold on; how long can you last?_

_Before you both start to remember the past_

_One agent was left to a killer pursue_

_He lost sight of things, and then there were two..._

**A/N again: Bum bum bum!!**


	8. And Then There Was One

**A/N: Oh, we are so very close now.. Beta read by the Gublerific editor frog!**

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter! If you don't like it, don't read it! And don't flame me! You have been warned!!**

--

Hotch's hands were shaking as he held the gun tightly. His entire reality was falling apart before his eyes. It was like he was caught in some deranged fantasy, concocted by some devious mind whose equal could only be found in the deepest part of the fiery pits of hell.

Wiping a tear of fright from his cheek, he followed his former colleague into the living room, where the first victim, Emily, had been claimed.

Gideon was also shaking. The events in this house, taking place only over the period of a few hours had shaken him to his very core. This was not what he had planned on happening when he went to sleep the night before. As he stopped in front of the barred window, he let out a deep sigh.

"What is going to happen now? I mean, is the house going to explode, or what? We're both here and neither of us is the killer."

He shook his head and wiped the forming beads of sweat from his brow.

"Wouldn't that defeat the purpouse of us being here, Gideon?" Hotch didn't even look at his former colleague as he spoke.

Gideon turned to him, a questioning look in his eyes. "What?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Hotch's voice trembled as he raised his eyes to meet those of his former friend and co-worker.

"Hotch, what are you talking about?" Hearing the tone of Hotch's voice, Gideon didn't want to believe it.

"I'm a profiler, Gideon. I'm not an idiot."

"Hotch, you can't possibly believe...?"

"I don't know what to believe anymore!" Hotch screamed through his tears. He leaned on the bloodied couch where Emily had died. Breathing deeply, he tried frantically to regain control of his mind; of the entire situation.

He failed miserably.

Raising the gun towards his former subordinate, a slightly desperate look came over his eyes. The barrel of the Glock darted around in front of him as he tried to get a clear aim at the man before him.

Gideon raised his hands in front of his head, still holding the Desert Eagle in his right one. "Hotch, please..."

"Be quiet and listen to me!" Still screaming, the superior moved around the couch on shaking legs. "Why, Gideon?"

"Hotch, I didn't..."

"Enough!"

Gideon saw his former colleague losing it; and losing it badly. It was understandable after all that had happened in this house. He knew he had to calm Hotch down.

_I have to get the gun away from him._

"Hotch, listen to me. This is what they want. They want us to turn on each other!"

Hotch wiped away more tears from his eyes, still aiming his gun at the older man in front of him, who was still trying to prove himself innocent.

"'They'? Who are 'they', Gideon? Tell me." The tremble in his raging voice was unmistakable. "There _is _no 'they', is there?! It's just _you_!"

"No, Hotch, I had nothing to do with this! Look, the timer on the door can't be more than three hours from opening. We'll stay in here until it opens, and we'll walk out of here together!"

"No deal, Gideon. I don't trust you. I don't know if I can trust _anyone _anymore. I'm not sure if I can even trust myself! But I know_** I**_ didn't do this and that only leaves _you_!"

"Hotch, don't you realize how ridiculous you sound?" Gideon tried to give a slight ironic smile to the enraged superior waving his weapon in front of him. "Why would I do this? Why would I kill everyone on my team?"

"It's not your team anymore, Gideon! It's _my _team! And they're all _dead_!"

Hotch felt hot, angry tears streaming down his face as he refused to let go of his gun. It was his only means of survival. He was scared, angry and frustrated, and he was taking it all out on the man in front of him. The one person that Hotch, in his confused and desperate state, believed to be responsible for all of this.

"Please, Hotch. You're playing right into their hands. Put the gun down and we'll wait together."

"You really think that'll work on me? Don't try getting into my head, Gideon, because believe me – there's not much there right now!"

"Hotch..."

"I have a son! I have a life! I can't die in this fucking house, I have to take care of my son! You are not going to kill me too!" Tears streamed from his eyes as he screamed at Gideon.

"Hotch, for God's sake!"

The superior advanced on his former colleague, still clenching his gun in his pale hand.

"Hotch..."

Gideon saw the desperation in Hotch's eyes and he rapidly approached him, and the older man let his arms drop, preparing for a very unwanted close combat.

"Hotch, stop!"

But Hotch didn't stop.

"Stop!"

As Hotch reached him, nearly coming chest to chest with the older man, he uncocked the gun.

"I can't let you kill me!"

One shot rang out, echoing through the silent house.

The look of shock on Hotch's face could only be compared to that of the shock written on Gideon's. The two men stood frozen for a moment, staring each other in the eyes.

Hotch took a few steps back. Looking down onto his chest, he saw a red stain of blood expanding on his t-shirt. Returning his eyes to those of the older man, he staggered back.

"Hotch... Oh, God. I'm sorry." Still holding the smoking Desert Eagle in his hand, Gideon looked on as his former superior backwards stumbled away from him.

Clutching his chest with one hand, Hotch raised the gun at Gideon and shakily pulled the trigger. Like the first time – it clicked. And again. And again. There were no bullets in the weapon. Falling back on the hard wood floor, the gun was knocked from his hand and slid across the floor.

The rattling breath leaving the dying superior's throat was enough to send Gideon into a fit of tears, and throwing the gun away, he threw himself on the floor beside the mortally wounded man.

"Hotch! Oh, my God, Hotch. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

Pressing his hands over the pulsating wound, Gideon frantically tried to save his dying friend. But it was no use.

Hotch's heart had already stopped beating, and his eyes had rolled back into his head. His lifeless body lay still on the floor under the desperate hands of Gideon.

As he realized Hotch couldn't be saved, he leaned over the dead body, bitterly crying over his own stupidity.

_I should have seen it! I should have taken his gun when he began to crack! I should have let him shoot me! He has a son!_

As Gideon lay crying on the floor, the deranged child's rhyme chimed through the room, only this time the voice was much closer, clearer and terrifyingly more familiar to the older man. His cries ceased as he heard the voice deliver its disturbed poetry. And this time, he knew exactly who was reading it.

_Eight little agent, in a house were confined_

_Battling against a criminal mind_

_They met their fates in different ways_

_As they ran like rats in a maze_

_One agent was shot by a friend on the run_

_He fell into darkness, and then there was one..._

The sound of a pair of clapping hands made Gideon jerk and spin around. The sight greeting him was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.

"Bravo, Gideon! I knew you'd make it to the end!"

--

**A/N again: BUM BUM BUM!! Who is there?! Who is behind all this!? I'm thinking about holding off on posting the final chapter, seeing I've already posted twice today..**


	9. And Then There Were None

**A/N: Okay, here we go! The final chapter!! Who is the UnSub?! Let's find out! OH! And there is a HUGE VEGAS STYLE BLINKING AU WARNING on this chapter! No poking me and saying "no, would never do that". I DID put a warning here! Beta read by the wonderful editor frog!**

**!! WARNING !! Character death in this chapter! If you don't like that stuff, don't read it! And don't flame me! You have been warned!**

--

Gideon's mind was racing a mile a minute as he looked up to the person walking into the room from the hallway. He couldn't speak, nor could he move from his place on the floor beside the body of his dead friend.

A huge smile greeted Gideon's eyes. Apparently it was very pleasing that he was the last one to survive. Still, the former agent couldn't believe what he was seeing. This couldn't possibly be happening.

"You have no idea how glad I am that you were the one left here in the end! I was a bit worried when Rossi was the one who found the only loaded gun I hid in the house, but somehow you got your hands on that – good move!"

Gideon's mouth was gaping as he listen to the words spoken by the person who had been behind this all along. Finally, he regained the ability to speak.

"But... But... Why!?"

A raised eyebrow in disbelief as a slender hand made its way through tousled curls.

"Why?"

Gideon watched as the now revealed UnSub slowly sauntered across the floor, passing him in the process.

"Why not?"

"Why not?" Gideon repeated. "For God's sake, they were your friends!"

The lanky form kept strolling around the room, a solid gaze remaining on Gideon.

"Friends... What is a friend, really? Someone who taunts you every day? Someone who mothers you until you're ready to puke? Someone who pisses all over you on the first and only date you've ever been on? I don't know if I consider that friendship. Would you, Gideon?"

"Jesus Christ..."

A Desert Eagle glimmered in the hand as the stroll continued.

"Make no mistake, Gideon; this one _is _loaded. And so is that one." Pointing over to the doorway.

Gideon turned, and the shock on his face increased.

_My God... But how!_

Another figure stood by the door, this one also terrifyingly familiar. A wave with the gun greeted the older man's stunned expression.

"Hi there, Gideon!" An all too chipper voice accompanied the smile.

Gideon felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around, only to come face to face with the features he knew all too well for this to be true. Big brown eyes stared straight into his.

"Surprise."

The smile was one he'd seen so many times, but never like this. Never in this manner. The young man crouching beside him wasn't the same man he had once come to know and love. This was someone else.

"How..? I saw you, Reid. Both of you! You were dead!"

A shake of the head and raised eyebrows together with a tightly clenched smile told Gideon he was wrong.

"Ah-ah-ah. Did you check either of our pulses?"

Gideon realized he hadn't.

"But I saw..."

"You saw what we wanted you to see, Gideon", came the chipper voice from behind him, followed by footsteps approaching him. "Did you see me get killed? Did you really?"

Gideon was dumbfounded and couldn't move his gaze from the brown eyes boring into his. All this madness, all this death around him... Had it only been a deranged game to them?

"I had to slam poor Reid's head into the kitchen cabinet to make it look real. Poor thing, all groggy, but at least he got to me before anyone else did so he could 'check my pulse' and rip the bag off me." A sly smile graced the blonde woman's lips.

"Hotch should have checked my pulse. I wouldn't have been able to hide that. But I figured, a bullet in the head wouldn't really give him a reason, death would have been instantaneous. My eyes hurt like hell though!"

"What about the bullet wound?" Gideon pointed to Reid's bloodied temple.

"Oh this?" The young man let his fingers run across the blood smeared into his tousled curls. "Ever heard of paint ball? You know, you can have the pellets specially made with any filling you want."

"Good God..." He stared into the brown eyes before him, trying to find speck humanity remaining behind the insanity shooting at him.

All he got was the same satisfied smile.

"All this... Why did you do it?" Gideon tried to get some form of answer.

"Why does anyone do anything?" the female voice came from behind him. "Money."

"Money?!" Gideon nearly yelled, not believing his ears. "Money made you do this!? Kill everyone?! Garcia, for God's sake!"

"Not just money, Gideon! More money than you can ever imagine. Someone really wanted the team to go away, and – well... I have a wedding to pay for. Do you have any idea what my job pays? We're planning on starting a family; you can't do that on two technicians' paychecks."

Gideon shook his head in utter disbelief as he closed his eyes. He knew money could twist the minds of many people, but these two he would never have believed to be subjectable to that kind of bribery.

"I don't... I can't..." he began, but was interrupted.

"Really, Gideon, have you never wanted more? More than being the geek with the screens and the loud outfits, you know. This is gonna be a new start for me." Garcia smiled at Gideon's turned back.

Gideon tried to make sense of what Garcia was saying. Of all the people in the world, she was the one person he'd never even imagine being this focused on money. "Money, Garcia? What about your friends – the people you just killed?!"

"Oh, Gideon, I didn't kill all of them. Just Morgan. Well, basically just Morgan, we both wired the pantry for JJ. We knew she'd freak out and try to hide." Garcia gave a slight smile.

"And Rossi? Emily?"

"We gave Emily a little shot before everyone woke up that kind of messed up her digestive system. And Rossi, well – that wasn't me."

"No, that one was me. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw me under the bed!" A chuckle emerged and died out just as fast. "And Hotch... Well, that was you, Gideon! We had nothing to do with that one! Thanks for making it easier for us." Reid clapped the older man's shoulder encouragingly.

"What about the bodies disappearing?"

"The house has several passages that you'd have to know about to find. Bodies aren't that hard to drag around." Garcia brushed some lint of her pajamas with her free hand. "Except for JJ, she bled all over the place."

"It's amazing to see such great minds freak out..." Another smile from Reid.

"And Elle? Why isn't she here? You could find _me_ but not _her_?" Gideon frowned at his former protégé.

"Oh, we found her. But see, she had this nasty reaction to the tranquilizer we used to sedate you, and unfortunately; she died before we could even get her in the game. We put her in the room behind the bathroom. You were never in that room – too bad! I would have loved to have seen your face. No fun playing with people when they're already dead, is there, Garcia?"

"Nope. And once we're done here, we'll walk out of this house with enough money to get us through life easily!"

Reid shook his bloodied curl. "Jesus, Garcia – are you really this stupid?"

The woman's head jerked up and met those of her ally. "W-what?"

The smile became a toothy one as the young doctor straightened his lanky figure rose to full length. "Did you really believe all that shit I fed you about the money?"

"What are you talking about?" The insecurity rose in her voice.

"There's no money Garcia! God, I can't believe you fell for that! I could feed you shit with a spoon and you'd eat it!"

"But... But you said..!"

The Desert Eagle was now pointed straight at her.

"But, but, but...!" Taunting her now. "Shut up, Garcia. Thanks for all your help, but I won't need you anymore."

"Jesus, what are you doing?!" Backing away now, Garcia raised her gun towards her ally.

"Oh, please. Do you really think I'd give you bullets?" A self-righteous smile was shot at the now frightened woman.

She clasped the trigger, and the gun went click. A look of terror came over her as she stared at the gun in Reid's hand.

"I'm the only one with a loaded weapon in this house."

One gunshot rang through the house, the bullet hitting Garcia square between the eyes. She unceremoniously fell to the floor with a thud.

Reid looked back at the now severely shocked man on the floor beside the dead superior. "I've been practicing."

"Spencer, Jesus Christ..." Gideon was shaking.

The young man sat down beside his former mentor, still pointing to gun at him from a position in his lap. "You know, this is pretty much your fault."

Gideon stared at his young protégé. "My... My fault?"

Casually, Reid ran a hand through his hair. "You started this."

"You can't be serious, Reid."

"I couldn't be more serious. Did you honestly think you left me undamaged when you took off?"

"Reid..."

"Oh, wait! Wait! This is just too good. I've seen this in movies a million times. I know it's the worst idea ever, but since there is no SWAT-team or back-up heroes here, I can do it without worrying."

He rose to his feet and strode over to the bloodied couch, sitting down and crossed his legs.

"See, this is where the bad guy spills the guts on all the evil things he's done!" The smile resting on Reid's lips was a very comfortable one. He knew he had the upper hand.

"Where should I start...?" Stroking his jaw, the young man took on a mock-thoughtful look.

Gideon decided he wanted to find out what drove the young man to these extents. "How about starting from the point where you decided to go on a murderous rampage?" He knew he'd been blunt, but hoped for the best. At least it couldn't get worse.

Reid laughed. "Good one! Well, let's see... You left. That's the first thing."

"Reid, I'm sorry... If you just let me explain..."

"Oh, no – you don't get to talk now. You haven't talked to me for this long; you can shut up now as well. This is my time to talk."

Reid shifted position and looked his former mentor straight in the eyes.

"My mom died two months ago. I suppose that would qualify as my stressor."

Gideon shook his head. "Reid, I'm sorry. If I'd known..."

"Yeah, but you didn't know; did you? You didn't know, and you didn't care – 'cause you weren't there!"

Reid shook his head and calmed down. "No... Let's not go into details. Just know that this is your fault."

Gideon had no idea what to say. Reid had obviously had some form of major depressive episode, and had possibly slipped into a psychosis; probably brought on by his mother's death. It was impossible to comprehend that this cold blooded killer was the same person as the boy he had once known to be one of the gentlest souls alive. But a psychosis could change any man to the worse, Gideon knew that. But why all this death?

"I know what you're doing, Gideon. Go on and profile me. It's not gonna do you any good though." Reid shook his head.

"Why, Reid? Why did you kill them?"

"Why...? Yeah, that's a good question. Why? Why do you think, Gideon? You are the oracle when it comes to human behavior. I'm just the fact-spewer."

"Reid, you're not..." The cocking of the gun told him he was about to say something very wrong. "Okay. Why did you do it? Well, the psychosis you're probably going through sure is doing its part. You chose us because we're the closest people to you, which makes us easy targets. We trust you, making us easy to manipulate."

Gideon paused to watch the reaction from the young man, and as Reid nodded, he continued.

"You knew we wouldn't believe one of us being the killer, but calculated that the fewer we became, the less trust we'd have for each other. What I can't figure out is how you were able to do all this and not feel the least bit of guilt. I see it in your eyes, Spencer. There's nothing there."

Reid smiled. "You now, Gideon; once you start slipping, there's really no way to get back up. You can't expect a full explanation. Use that brilliant mind of yours and figure it out."

"What about those deranged children's rhymes? Whose voice was that?"

"Oh, it was me. We pre-recorded them last week. Garcia had the recordings slightly scrambled so it didn't completely resemble me, but still had a hint of my tone in it."

Gideon frowned. "But how did you know...?"

"How did we know when, where, who and how on all the deaths? Gideon, please. Do you really think we just walked in here and said 'hey, let's kill everyone!'? Please. This took planning. Besides, I know you all. I knew who'd freak, who'd be left behind and who'd survive. The only thing I didn't know was who was going to get the loaded gun. I hoped it would be you, so I could tell you all this."

"Why are you telling me all this then, Spencer?" Gideon tried to buy time, get the young man talking. Maybe he could catch some form of thought of empathy from the sadly disturbed man.

Reid walked over to the man sitting on his knees beside Hotch and crouched beside him, looking him square in the eyes. "Because I want you to know that this all happened because of _you_. I may be having an episode, or a psychosis or whatever it is called, but _you_ brought this on, Gideon. You could have stopped this by not leaving like the coward you are. But you didn't. And now the blood's on your hands. Not mine."

"That's not going to work, Reid. You can't blame this on me."

"Yeah I can. And the second I leave this house, you _will_ start to wonder if you really could have stopped this whole thing."

Reid rose, still pointing the gun at the older man. As he walked across the floor, he stepped over Garcia in one swift step.

"Where are you going?" Gideon tried to engage the young man in further conversation to prevent him from leaving. He hadn't gotten enough answers yet.

"Oh, I have an appointment, so I have to go now. I'll just leave you here to consider all the possibilities that could have been; and the consequences of you leaving." Reid pressed a few numbers on the time lock, and it snapped open. As he was about to pass through the door, he turned back to the rising man in the living room. "This is your punishment, Gideon. Knowing."

"Knowing what?!" Gideon began speeding towards the door. "Reid!"

But Reid had already exited the door and slammed the door shut and re-closed the time lock.

Gideon threw himself on the door, banging it with his fists. "Reid! Listen to me! Let me out! Spencer!"

The young man strolled down the path leading into the forest. The sun was rising, coloring the sky in beautiful shades of purple, pink and yellow. Reid stopped for a moment and listened to the birds chirping in the trees, drawing the brisk morning air deep into his lungs. It was chilly outside as he continued to saunter into the forest.

The silver SUV was parked a few hundred feet from the house, hidden behind a turn of the dirt road leading to the main one. Hopping into the driver's seat, he started it and began driving away from the house.

Looking in the rear view mirror, he saw the large wooden house stand in the huge clearing behind him. Frowning, he rummaged through the small compartment between the seats while musing to himself.

"One little agent left all alone, left in the house for his sins to atone..."

He gripped the little device and flicked it happily between his fingers. One red button and a small switch decorated its otherwise plain black surface.

"He sits on the floor in a river of blood, his life being spared by the click of a dud..."

Looking at the small switch, a smile came over his lips.

"The agent now cries for the innocence gone..."

Flicking the switch causing the device to beep rapidly.

"He burns for his deception..."

Pressing the red button, making the device let out an outdrawn beep.

"...and then there were none..."

The violent explosion about a mile behind him didn't make a sound, at least not that Reid could hear. He saw the funnel cloud rise in black, red and yellow, making a terrifying smoking foreground for the impressive rising sun coming over the trees.

Reid reached over to the dashboard, throwing the device as he grabbed his shades to spare his eyes.

Suddenly, a bright chirping sound came from the passenger seat. The name on the small screen was one Reid knew very well by now. With a sly smile, he flicked the cell phone open to answer.

"Hi, babes. Yeah, I'm done here. Everything went just fine. I'll be home in about an hour. Yeah, I'm hungry as a wolf, what are you making?"

A moment of silence.

"Chili? Sounds great!"

**END**

--

**A/N again: Didn't see those turns coming, huh? I hope you all liked it and are happy in the end. Did you _REALLY_ think I could kill of baby boy Reid?! What do you think of me, babes?!**

**Oh, and thank you PB for the use of "you know who", it made a nice turn there on the end :)**

**Hope you all keep reading my stuff, and thank you to all the wonderful people reviewing, it makes me so happy that I can make you guys happy too!**

**/AA**


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